Tuesday, April 12, 2011

This is the first in a series of previews in which we've decided to go all meta and examine the various ways in which the media is examining the Habs-Bs playoff series. 'Cause, you know, this thing is really flying under the radar and needs more hype...

We couldn't bear to mess with Chantal and François... The woman is a saint for putting up with these guys, and François seems like a good dude, if you ignore his creepy yellow teeth.

We here at FHF HQ take pride in our ability to leave no stone unturned, no dumpster un-dived potential source unexplored. To wit: we have uncovered the "Talking Points" communiqué that has been sent to the xenophobic blowhards the panelists over at l'Antichambre. It all makes sense now! In this modern day and age, it's clear that no one is actually that blindly nationalistic. They're just following a strict set of talking points/party line that they have to follow in order to stay in those barcaloungers on set.

After sending it off to our crackerjack translation department (or maybe our editorial department - they're basically interchangeable) , here is what we've been able to uncover:

Montreal, April 11th, 2011Dear puppets and other assorted mouthbreathers,

I know some of you are disappointed. After all, it's clear that everyone wanted the Montreal Canadiens to playagainst the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference quarter final. After all, the interviews with notre cher Vincent and notre ami Martin would have been precisely the kind of soothing balm our pure-laine souls need in this time of election crisis when the bastard who can barely speak French the party that pays for premium advertising time on our channel is on the cusp of a majority.

However, we must soldier on and attempt to be enthusiastic about a Habs-Bruins playoff series. As such, here are some of the talking points we suggest in order to help you better feign enthusiasm:

There are some Quebeckers on the Bruins too! Well, okay, only one, if you consider that Savard was born in Ottawa and is really just another shitty franco-ontarian. Better still, Patrice Bergeron is from Ancienne-Lorette, câlice. You don't get much more pure-laine than that. Which, the Bruins have wisely recognized by giving him an "A" on his jersey.

Hey - the Bruins had problems with concussions too! And they affected people who speak French, not asshole Americans who go see shitty American movies and then tweet about it.

Speaking of that concussion, make sure you talk about it, but not so much about Max Pacioretty. Rather, spin it as yet another example of the way in which the NHL and Gary Bettman hate Quebec because they refused to punish Chara.

Make sure that the audience knows who the real stars of the team are: David Deharnais and Mathieu Darche.

Make sure you refer to Deharnais as "Le Petit Démon" in order to further cement the fact that he is the team's number one centre and the second coming of Guy Lafleur. We plan to make him stand on RDS milk crates in order to create the illusion that he is Chara's height.

Until further notice, please refer to Darche as "Le Gros Mathieu" in order to make sure that people think of him in the same way as Jean Béliveau. We need to make sure that he is the next captain of the Montreal Canadiens, even if he's in his early 40s by the time that happens.

Please refrain from saying anything nice about Andrei Kostitsyn. We need to have someone to blame when the Canadiens get bounced out of the playoffs and we couldn't give less of a shit about his career. Ditto for Scott Gomez.

If Cammalleri continues to be ineffective, you can start to question his morals and his likeability in the locker room. Otherwise, talk about how wonderful it is that he's taking French lessons and that he has adopted Montreal as his hometown.

If Pouliot continues to suck, point out every chance you get that he's not actually from Quebec. In the unlikely event he starts to score goals again, never EVER mention that he's actually from Ontario and feature many clips of him speaking French.

Don't rag on Brian Gionta yet. We just ran one captain out of town, no need to do that to another one yet. Besides, the little prick bought himself some time by introducing his teammates in "French" to start the season.

Make sure you pick up on every little thing that PK Subban fucks up. We don't want the English to corner the market on racist comments, or else we may lose viewership in the Saguenay.

If Carey Price doesn't come out as a hero in this series, make sure you show a lot of comparisons to José Théodore in his Vézina year. But make Carey look like a crappier version of Théo. Try to find Annie Villeneuve and get her to sleep with him - way cooler and more relevant than a pute like Paris Hilton. Plus, we can cut to tear-filled interviews with her ex, none other than Guillaume Latendresse! Maybe that way, we can get Price chased out of the city with pitchforks and torches in order to make way for a French Canadian goaltender - dare to dream people...

Make sure to compare the Lightning's playoff stats to the Canadiens' stats, but only if the Lightning compare favourably. This is especially the case if you choose to compare MAB (*HQ-ordered moment of silence*) to Wizniew-howeverthefuckyouspellhislastnamethatclearlyisn'tFrench.

When Bertrand Raymond is on the show, make sure you agree with EVERYTHING he says.

Above all else remember to be objective when it comes to discussing these two teams. Remember that your allegiance is not to either logo but rather to ensuring that the québécois who are wearing either jersey become the true stars for either side.

Besides, what other channel are Habs fans going to watch? CBC? Don't make me laugh.

Please note that deviating once from any of the above talking points will lead to immediate and on-air execution dismissal.

Ok, but until they get to play with their Nordicks, I don't think the Antichambre guys can be any more annoying than listening to the CBC announcers in a Toronto-Montreal game spend all their time talking about what the laffs are gonna do in the off season to get ready for next year, rather than, say, WTF is happening on the ice. Mind you, when L'Antichambre comes on I just usually turn the fucking idiot box off, so who the fuck am I to say?

right on the button LG.I must admit that L'AC has joined the HNIC ranks as far as I'm concerned. I've chosen to watch games on mute (stupid icon interferes with the play sometimes) as I've found I can't stand pontification in either official languages

In this household, we watch the Habs games on the Habs station, not on the leaf-Babroons stations. But shit, we have to dive for the remote before l'anticoherence (good one) starts, as to protect whatever functioning neurones are left in this family.

@Rookie - FWIW, I talk about this stuff all the time on the radio, albeit indirectly and usually in a self-deprecating way. It's all about how you introduce the topic. I mean, calling someone a racist pig is probably offisde, but saying that you heard from RDS that DDD is the second coming of Guy Lafleur is guaranteed to get you a chuckle from the Anglo MSM.

@BaconAddict - Pantscast should be up some time tomorrow if our crackerjack editing team (made up entirely of drunken monkeys) works efficiently throughout the night.

PS: @BaconAddict (May I call you bacon?) - two things. a) Your name is teh shit and b) I love the fact that you actually want to listen to the Pantscast. Am always pleased (and amazed) that people want to hear our drunken ramblings... :)

@ti-cul, we usually watch RDS even when there is a free English feed, since if there is a free English feed, it's gonna be Hockey Night in Toronto or the Toronto Sports Network. Not sure what possessed me the other night, perhaps bowed to Mrs. Le 12's threat to pull a Lysistrata on me if I didn't fall into line or something. Anyway, now I know my default choice is the right one. But when I was in the US and sometimes had to watch Broons-Habs games with the NESN feed ... holy fuck, man, even McSplooge is a big step up. Even the guys from Phoenix who barely know what a hockey puck is are much to be preferred.

We gave up on the debate tonight after they all went to reruns of their first answer. Definitely a few good smacks there in the first few minutes though. Even the Pequiste had some fun smacking the wooden boy around.

It can now be revealed : McPhee is a Francophone, and McPhee would much rather listen to Don CHerry (thanks for that bench penalty! You deserve a CH in your name just because of how happy you'd look in a Habs jersey. BTW, Habs-Preds in the Finals, would you don the tricolore? No you wouldn't, you racist fuck). CHerry (thanks for the the bench penalty, asshole!) has some entertainment value. I feel embarassed of being a Francophone Quebecer when I accidentally misplace my remote and can't run to the tv fast enough to avoid hearing some of their utter sheiss. The fact that "he who shall not be named" is not only allowed near the set, his opinion is actively sought and they even gave gim a fucking "chronique" FFS is completely beyond my worst nightmares. I think Orwell wouldn't of done a better job if he wrote a book about the Habs.

So, if I'm a member of their ethnic group and I want to repetitively punch all of them in the face, I can't imagine what most FHFers go through when these idiots get one hour a night to launch a massive and unprovoked attack on our neurons with the intent to destroy them as a group. At least if they were equal opprtunity idiots...

I thought there was some fucked up people around here, but that anon beats them all.

So, if some guy didn't know hockey, he would get a job in the nhl (except the buttman), but it's beyond me that rds and most sports network keeps hiring people who can't even speak and write a complete sentence, and give them jobs as "expert analyst and journalist".

And yes, we all pray that young children and even our mothers (except 29 mom's, she way cool) don't come up here.

It is a fact that many of us commenting on this site are neither lawyers nor Jewish, we are however no less anonymous than anon and even more so than the FHF as we do know something about all of them.

Yours truly being of pure laine fiber can attest that I NEVER watch AC even though I find the play by play on RDS far superior to any anglo feed, as for Cherry I do watch him maybe a half dozen times a year for my own amusement.

Our fringe media lunatics are very small potatoes indeed compared to our friends to the south and BTW those on the tube are very mild indeed compared to some radio play in the deeper south.

So PHuck anon, PHuck BR, PHuck Cherry, PHuck everyone who gets paid money not to propose but to criticize and PHuck the Broons and all those who walk with them and oh ya Die PHucktards Die!

I'm not sure this post is sarcasm, Maritimer. She seems to have it in for the French Canadians. No one in their non-racist mind would go to such extreme as to insult a group of people as she did.

I'm embarrassed for her.

To say that RDS only talks about the local boys, lets address that. Does the French media have any other televised outlet? This is not a rethorical question -- I really don't know. Do they? If not, I have no reason to see why RDS would not want to talk about their local boys. Nothing wrong, with that and you should be proud of our local boys too, unless of course, what turns you off is that they are not Anglo.

Look at Hockey Inside Out and their video interviews or their audio interviews. Do they interview Francophones? No, they don't. And to be fair, at least Joel Bouchard interviews Muller at times.

How about the Gazette and some of the clowns that write sports columns there. Some of these guys do not have journalism, communication or English degrees. And you critize RDS for not being professional? Maybe not lawyergirl specifically, but someone up here left a comment about that...

This town is divided, it's clear. And as anon suggests, if you don't like what they say, go elsewhere. You do have a choice, right? There is CBC, TSN, Versus and probably others I'm not familiar with. My choice is RDS. I like listening to them. Is it going to be perfect? No, but they do the job.

Lastly, when you say they were wetting their pants to have finals with Tampa Bay (ok, you didn't put it like that, I did) so they could get interviews with Vince and Martin, well, can you not examine the reasons they would like to do that further than your assumptions? Look, this is a French network. Their market is French, meaning the people who watch are French with a good chance that not all of the viewers even understand English. How are you going to interview a non-Francophone? Honestly, their playing field is limited in that regard, so you shouldn't be so quick to judge them and their intent.

Lawyergirl77, I'm disappointed in you that you would stoop so low as to throw these insults. Especially now in playoff time, we need to be together and not divided. You don't help the matter. If you're trying to be funny, know that you can do it other ways (as you have before) without hitting below the belt.

You went too far.

And I would really like you to answer this.

@Maritimer: Sarcasm is a way of masking anger. And I think LawyerGirl's feelings about the French population is clear here.

I'm not sure why your earlier comment isn't showing up. Rest assured that I got it and that yours is the comment to which I chose to respond.

To be blunt, I don't care whether or not you "believe" me about my mother tongue. I know who I am, and that's what matters.

I just don't understand what you found to be so hurtful about my pointing out the ridiculousness of the stuff said by the "experts" on L'Antichambre.

I encourage you to look at the first bit of the post - we plan to go after a bunch of media outlets in the next two days. We opted out of going after the Gazette because, frankly, it was kind of boring. There are only so many ways you can make fun of Hick's slovenly car, Stubbs' encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure goalie stats, Red's, well, Red Fisherness and Boone's daily posts. The Antichambre people were easy targets.

You seem to think I "go to far" a lot. You do realize that this is a satirical blog about strippers and hockey, with a fair bit of discussion about recreational drugs on the side, right?

I also encourage you to go back into the FHF archives (long before I joined) to read the "Bertrand Raymond" season previews.

As a Quebecer, I can say that only a Quebecer with absolutely NO sense of humour (this means YOU Anon, you oh-so-tough blog-comment-warrior you) would not be able laugh at this (and hence, themselves).

Keep it up LG, you picked up some new readers with this post, all but one of which is "full pure-laine."

"Especially now in playoff time, we need to be together and not divided,"

mean?

You don't live near my house, (which will watch the games on RDS in French and turned off when the AC idiots come on) or even concern me, so I couldn't give a good crisse what you think of the above p[ost, which was funny as hell.

I was perhaps incorrect when I accused you of not recognizing sarcasm. Satire, as LG77 pointed out was the correct term for her excellent post.

Anyhow, I'm an anglophone with some Acadien ancestry I'm as proud of as my English side of the family. I don't speak French but can follow a bit by picking up words I recognize to get a grasp of what they are talking about. My point is I watch 95% of habs games on RDS because I can't stand the blatant anti-Canadiens rhetoric spewed by the likes of Ron McLean, Don Cherry, Mike Milbury, P.J. Stock, Bob Cole, Gary Galley, James Duthie, Pierre McGuire, on and on and on. You want to hear someone rip francophones, listen to Mr. Cherry. I can't wait to see what the other sharp witted satirists have lined up for that bunch.

It's all in fun around here. Nobody should take anything seriously in this blog. They poke fun at themselves all the time.

It's frustrating for me when people demean or make rude ethnic jokes, and package it with "it's all in fun or I was joking or it's a satire.". Poking fun at l'antichambre or RDS might be acceptable if you give the same amount of poking to The Gazette or HIO or CKGM (if you want to talk about about crappy non-educated broadcasters). Your attacks, by the way are more directed to the issue of 'language'. Nowhere in this post do you mention PJ Stock. You don't find that odd? I do.

Honestly, I think you're funny, I really do. I listened to your pantscast and I liked it, I liked you. I draw the line at mocking language, culture...etc. On the podcast, one of you (but not LG) made a wise one of chicken and PK's uncle.

@Anon - You're right, a lot of my post revolves around language. You know why? Because I'd say 80% of L'Antichambre revolves around the concept of language and the inherent awesomeness of all Québécois players - to the point of wilful blindness regarding the other players on the team. It's one of the things that frustrates me the most about the show, which is why I did satire-by-absurd by "leaking" an internal memo. They go there ALL the time. So I just went a little further in order to point out how ludicrous it all is.

PJ Stock will get what's coming to him in a future post. I think of him more as a CBC guy, anyway. I actually don't mention the commentators by name, with the exception of Chantal (who I adore and pity for being saddled with these loons) and François who I find creepy but knowledgeable and an all-around decent guy. HE rarely makes it about language (although there are times when I can't help himself).

Again - we (I) toyed with the idea of a Gaz-centric post, but it was really boring.

All this to say, I'm sorry that you find ridiculing language issues so offensive. I'm honestly perpelexed about why this is such a button-pushing topic with you. Seriously - it's a survival skill in Montreal, especially for someone who has been described both as a " fucking frog" and a "bloke aux coins arrondis" by people living on both sides of St. Laurent.

Not talking about language issues in Quebec would be like trying to paint around (or over) the elephant in the room. You can try to ignore it all you want but, eventually, it's gonna hafta take a big dump and you'll know it's there (or, at the very least, smell it).

@Anon - they've only started raving about Price this year. Before they were ready to feed him to the wolves. Much of the anti-Price hangover that the city still has is due to their bile. PK - the love is very recent. They were ready to tar and feather him (yes, am aware of the connotations) up until about a month ago.

I'll grant you that they say nice things about Pleks (most of the time). But I have never heard them say anything nice about Big Tits that wasn't said in either a backhanded or begrudging way.

They were seriously calling DDD the second coming of Guy Lafleur two weeks ago. I shit you not. I couldn't believe what I was hearing... they were buying it, too! I love me some DDD, but he ain't Guy Guy Guy.

It's not a question of who they interview. Got no problems with them interviewing les francos and of being justifiably proud of their success.

It's more of a question of who they defend/prop up. Best example is the continued worship at the alter of Marc-André Bergeron. He's a good guy, don't get me wrong. Heckuva shot from the point. SHITTY D-MAN. And, yet, when the Canadiens didn't sign him, it was as if the Goat said that he had built himself a time machine and was actually Ponce Pilate.

They aren't all bad guys. It goes back to my theory about the demise of modern discourse (long story, not really good for comments section of this blog). There is so much goddamned noise nowadays that only extreme views/theories get heard. So, you pump up the vitriolic volume and let 'er rip. That's what the people at the Antichambre do for me. And that's why I blasted their cacophony right back at them yesterday.

I don't know what you said yesterday and if it's insulting, would rather not know. Sigh. Why do you do that? (said with the tone that Seinfeld would use). I have a low tolerance for racism. Lived in various places around the world to see too much of it and what it breeds.

Yes, I have some Quebecois in me, but it really shouldn't matter, should it?

But, you read what she said yesterday... Did you forget why you are here? That popping sound was the last of my brain cells.

In the words of some very wise hand puppets, "Everyone's a little bit racist, sometimes." Even you. In this case, LG is pointing out AC's discrimination using satire.

I'm really not sure what it is you aren't getting. Besides, if you knew LG personally, you'd know that she is as far from racist, sexist or and form of discrimination you can think of. Heck, she's even fair about certain commentors on blogs.

(LG, this is the ONLY place you'll ever hear me say good things about you!!!)

About Four Habs Fans

The Four(-ish) Habs Fans are four(-ish) Habs fans. Three are from Montreal, though one of those is now stuck in the middle of the Red Mile. The other somehow grew up a Habs fan in the middle of Ontario Cottage Country, and now lives in Hogtown. Some of them are lawyers, so they are opinionated, and may or may not be assholes.

HabsFan29 is a lifelong Montrealer who decided the Four Habs Fans' email exchanges about the Habs were just too stupidly amusing and occasionally intelligent not to share with the world. The 29 is for the greatest (only?) Goalie-lawyer-PM candidate ever. He would like his mom to know that his meth habit is overstated on this blog for comedic effect.

HabsFan4 paid tribute to one of the finest gentlemen to ever don a Canadiens sweater. His legacy as one of the pioneers of the Gangsta Rap movement has always been understated. His Jaro posts will be recalled fondly by all.

HabsFanForever33 aka Panger is a Montrealer in Exile currently residing mere blocks from the Red Mile, yet whose passion for all things Canadiens has only embiggened with distance. HFF33 worships at the altar of St. Patrick. Panger still gets chills recalling the moment he met the greatest goal-scorer of all time, The Rocket. HFF33 is a life-long Habs fan, except during the Houle-Tremblay Era, when Le Club de Hockey Canadiens was dead to Panger.

HabsFan10 grew up watching Le Demon Blond on Radio-Canada with his unilingual English Dad in a WASPy little town in Maple Leafs country, at least until the playoffs each year, when he got to hear Danny Gallivan and Dick Irvin because the Leafs played on opposite nights (if they made the playoffs at all). Rick Middleton and Cam Neely sometimes haunt his dreams. He thinks Thurso, Quebec should be declared a national historical site. If you aren't sure what the 10 in HF10 stands for, you're on the wrong site, buster.

All mind-bogglingly warped Photoshop work courtesy the warped mind of GoldenGirl11 a.k.a. LukeyNussbaum11. All stripperrific vision expressed by contributors through Photoshop are solely those of the individual writer and do not reflect the opinions of GG11, a card carrying feminist, although she's sure that they are the opinions of her four sons even if they don't care to admit it.

moeman born in l'Estie'd'Québec, was baptized Maurice because well his Mom, seeing his beautiful dark locks and glaring eyes knew he'd need a namesake, actually it was his Mon Oncle Yvon that CHristened his Habstism, deep in central Ontario no less. He took life's circuitous route and blessed his own son with the name Patrick in 1993. He also has a gorgeous daughter but she's a Sens fan, so, meh. moeman loves women, wine, song, women, Habs, his kids, women, iOS Apps, hockey blogging women and women. His other passion, he hates the leaf. He also loves women.